Night Falls Fast
by illman
Summary: Tempus Fugit, Stargate:AtlantisxEarth:FinalConfilct
1. Chapter 1

Title: Night Falls Fast

Author: Illman

Category: gen, h/c, crossover, action/adventure

Rating: FRT-13

Beta: DianeM

Date: 06/18/06

Feedback: All comments are appreciated.

Warnings: crossover, some violence, mild horror

Disclaimer: It's their universe, not mine.

Summary: Tempus Fugit

A/N: Crossover with Earth Final Conflict. Set in the second season of Stargate: Atlantis right after Trinity. Spoilers for SGA seasons oneandtwo up toTrinity and EFCgeneral spoilers for season one, but no specific episodes.

oOo

The Pegasus Galaxy

2006

"Can't you put just a little more speed in it, Colonel?" Rodney asked from the back of the Jumper. He sounded like he was speaking and eating at the same time.

"You should know it, McKay. I'm flying as fast as it goes. You'll be home in the lab with your reactor in nine hours and fifty-six minutes. No actually, it will be a bit longer. I'm not sure this thing puts in the delay for dialling the gate."

"Well, thanks for nothing." Rodney sounded, genuinely pissed, but maybe it was just that they had been away from privacy, a good night's sleep and real food for a bit too long.

"I thought you with your super genes could maybe get some extra speed out of the Jumper. I mean, the Ancient technology almost begs you to use it when you just think at it," Rodney accused, still munching on something.

John turned around. The Jumper was pretty much flying itself. Rodney sat on one of the benches in the back, a laptop standing on the floor next to him; he was holding what looked like a PowerBar.

Teyla was lying on the opposite bench, arm thrown over her head. She'd decided to try to get some sleep a few hours ago. John couldn't imagine anyone actually getting some sleep with Rodney never shutting up for more than ten minutes, but if anyone could do it, Teyla could.

"Believe me; I want to get back to Atlantis. Elizabeth will have us both for being two days late. But at least I can finally have a shower," John said. He could feel every one of the last five days.

They had been on a mission to Karas, a planet they had discovered several weeks ago. The native people called themselves the Kara and were a very simple people, or as Rodney put it, primitive. The only reason there had been a second mission to the planet, were the rich Naquadah deposits close to the surface. Naquadah was scarce metal, not found on Earth, but found on planets in the Milky Way.

The visit with the leader of the Kara had gone over better than expected. Rodney had kept to himself and they had all smiled their way through the three days. Only Ronon had refused to smile or say anything more than was necessary. John had left both men in peace and had left most of the talking to Teyla, who at the end of the three days had gotten Mallin, the leader, to agree to a geological survey.

They could have been on their way home, hungry and aching, as the food had been sparse and the mattresses non-existent, but on their way home. Then a shower of asteroid fragments had hit the Jumper.

oOo

"Admit it, you liked that guy's twin daughters," Rodney teased John playfully. After the stiff negotiation talks with the Kara, they all needed to lighten up.

"I have no idea who you mean." John leaned back in his chair.

"Please. Blonde, tiny leather skirts. They kept refilling your cup."

"Indeed, Ojala seemed to be infatuated with you," Teyla said. "I'm sure she is a lovely woman."

"Space Bimbo." Rodney grinned.

"What's a Space Bimbo?" Ronon asked.

"Uh..." Rodney was saved by an alarm wailing through the ship. John whirled around to the controls.

"What's happening?" Rodney shouted.

"Hold on to your seats. Something headed right for us." John had hardly time to finish the sentence when the Jumper was struck, rocking the occupants hard.

"What was that?"

"Wraith?"

The Jumper took another hit, sending off another alarm as a shower of sparks shot from a console.

"Ow. Fuck!" John cursed, pulling his right arm to his chest. "The controls have been hit and I think the dampeners are gone. It's going to get rocky."

John called up a star map of the nearest solar system. It looked like they had to make an emergency landing on a nearby planet.

"Rodney, I could use a hand here. It looks like we need to set down here somewhere."

Rodney quickly switched places with Ronon and took the controls. His glance fell on John's right arm, still held to his chest.

"You all right?"

"Not now. Rodney, find me a planet where we can land," John ground out, trying to keep a reign of the Jumper's controls. While he normally flew the craft with ease, his connection with the system had been hindered.

Rodney forced himself to look away from the shreds of burnt uniform hanging from John's forearm. He let his hands fly over the consoles, teasing the information from the Jumper's systems.

"Closest solar system is about three minutes away. The sixth planet from the sun is inhabitable, but no Stargate. We can be there in four minutes," Rodney said, while still working furiously.

"That's good. How far to the nearest Gate? I don't want to be stranded out here," John asked, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his arm. It was his job to land the Jumper safely. He could worry about his injury later.

"Why do you think we flew all the way to Karas? There are no Stargates between Karas and P4Y-512. And we are still almost 20 hours away," Rodney snapped.

"It's not that we are going to crash, but the controls have taken a blow when we got hit... with whatever we got it. I'm reading some pretty strong power fluctuations. We could be headed for on overload. I'm going to set us down," John announced and set the course for the solar system.

The tiny ship swerved like a car on an icy mountain road and without the inertial dampener, the passengers felt every turn and twist. Rodney's knuckles were white from gripping onto his seat with all his strength and even Teyla started to look a little green. Ronon just looked angry and John was too busy trying to keep control of the craft.

"It might get a little bumpy now, guys, so you better grab onto something. I'm trying to bring as down slowly, but the ride through the atmosphere could get a little...heated," John said.

"Are you kidding? If we go down too fast we could literally burn up!" Rodney yelled. "Slow down!"

The Jumper shuddered. Loose metal was scratching against something. It was becoming warmer inside the ship as they fell towards the surface. They cleared the layer of clouds and were now hurtling towards a mad collage of green and brown swatches.

"Rodney, move back! This could get ugly." John pushed Rodney back from the console, knowing that they'd impact with the ground in a matter of seconds. John did all he could to control the wayward ship's descent path. Images of the planet's surface flipped through his mind as he struggled to guide the ship to a safe landing spot. Trees, fields, rock and water flashed by as the Jumper zoomed to the ground. John made the move for an open spot, just as they were about to crash.

The Jumper impacted into a large lake where it skimmed on the surface for a few hundred feet before slamming into the shoreline.

oOo

"Sheppard!" Someone was hitting him in the face. John tried to bat the hand away, but he couldn't move his arm.

"Sheppard! Wake up now!" Another slap hit him on the cheek. John turned his head away.

"Be careful, Ronon. He's injured." A familiar female voice came form the side.

"He's just knocked out," a man grumbled

John opened his eyes. Once they focused, he recognized two familiar faces.

"Ronon, Teyla. What happened?" He hurt all over, but the fact that he was alive and breathing was a good sign. Any landing that you could walk away from...

"We crashed," Ronon stated.

"You managed to land the Jumper on a lake. Dr. McKay is assessing the damage right now. How are you feeling?" Teyla leaned over him.

John processed the information. He noticed that his uniform was wet. "I have seen worse landings." He attentively moved his limbs and found that his team-mates had tied his right arm to his chest.

"Everyone all right?" He tried to sit up and Teyla hurried to help him.

"We are fine," she answered after she had helped him lean against the boulder. "It is only you who has been injured. You have burned your arm and I believe the bone has been broken. I brought the supplies from the ship."

Teyla opened the first aid kit from the Jumper. "Yeah, some Tylenol sounds like a pretty good idea right about now. I must have banged my head on something." John reached up to feel his forehead and encountered a painful spot.

Teyla helpfully started sorting through the kit and handed John the bottle and his canteen. "I believe you are looking for this."

John washed down two pills and handed the medication back to Teyla. "Someone should be with McKay." He was only now starting to take in their new surroundings.

"He's got the life sign detector with him. He said this planet was uninhabited. He insisted we take care of you first," Teyla explained.

"Well' I'm fine now. Ronon, go find Rodney. Teyla and I will catch up with you." John made an effort to get up as Ronon hurried off.

"Should we really leave our camp unattended?" Teyla asked. John looked around. His team-mates had brought him and most of their equipment to the mouth of a cave. From where he stood, he couldn't tell how deep the cave was, but it was clear why they had chosen this spot. The land in front of them was arid wasteland. The sun was standing low and the horizon now, but it was still hot enough for him to imagine that the heat could be quite oppressive during midday hours. The cave would provide protection from the sun.

"How far are we from the Jumper?"

"Not far, only a few minutes on foot. You chose a good spot to land. Dr. McKay is down at the shore examining the Jumper." Teyla supported him as they walked the slightly downhill way to the lake. John could already see the calm surface of the water in the distance and the Jumper lying on the shore like a beached whale.

When they approached, Rodney came crawling out of the Jumper. He looked sunburned, but not too unhappy.

"Colonel, good to see you."

"How's my ship?" John asked casually, surprised at how good the Jumper looked after the crash landing.

"Come on in." Rodney led the way into the crashed ship. The lighting inside was dim, but some of the consoles were alive.

"I was able to bring the central computer back online and run a diagnostic. I found out what hit us in the first place." Rodney paused. "Tiny asteroid fragments. I'm still working on it, but as far as I can tell, only the computer systems have been damaged." Rodney sounded excited at the prospect.

"That's good news? How?" John asked, his headache still making thinking difficult.

"The power-core isn't going to blow up from computer malfunctions." Rodney was smug.

"So, are you going to get the Jumper flying again?" John asked.

"Of course, I can fix it," Rodney answered. "But, I think we shouldn't leave this quickly. There is something on this planet, something that's emitting a very powerful energy signature."

"ZPM?"

Rodney moved his hands over the display and the HUD changed to a map-like view of the area.

"That's new." They hadn't seen this function of the Jumper before.

"Wait till you see more." Rodney did his magic and the display changed again to show them a small round citadel.

"That looks like what the 'king' did with the chair in the Tower," John commented.

"Neat trick, huh? The energy signature is coming from inside that building. Whatever it is, it is more powerful than a ZPM. We need to check it out." Rodney grinned.

"Are you sure it is safe?" John asked, realising the futility of the question. They didn't do safe for a living. Still, he liked to have some idea what he was up against.

"I don't see why not. There is no sign of the Wraith or anyone else and I'd be able to tell if the device was unstable or radioactive, if that's what you are thinking," Rodney reassured him.

"I'll bite, but keep it simple; my head is about to explode. Anything in the database about this planet?" John sat down on in one of the front seats.

"Well, as you know, the Jumpers aren't outfitted with the full Ancient database, but there is extensive information about the planets of this galaxy. At least the ones the Ancients have been to. This one isn't one of them. This makes sense, seeing that they haven't put a Gate anywhere near this solar system. Look, just send Ronon and me to check it out," Rodney pleaded with him. "It's only four kilometres away from here. We'll be gone and back in half a day."

John leaned back, trying to ease his pounding headache. "You know that Weir will be looking for us when we don't show up tomorrow. We can't exactly go on a treasure hunt without telling her. I guess we are out of radio reach?"

"There is a hyperspace beacon on board each Jumper. We think it's for locating the Jumpers in case of an emergency. The problem is that the Wraith will pick up the signal as well. But as I said, barring any unforeseen problems, I should have the Jumper up and running again in a day or two. Luckily, the Ancients packed some spare parts in the trunk." Rodney grinned.

"All right, we'll check it out. But you are staying here. We need you to repair the Jumper. Ronon and I will check out this energy source and Teyla will cover your back here. Just in case." John agreed.

"You really live in your own world, don't you? You think you are invincible! Or did you just hit your head a little bit too hard?" Rodney suddenly snapped without warning.

"What?" John asked, puzzled, wondering whether he really had hit his head too hard. He rubbed his throbbing head, carefully avoiding the gash on the left side. He wasn't sure what track Rodney was on now.

"You just crash-landed a space ship, you idiot. It's a wonder we didn't all die! Just...just go back and lie down." Rodney turned and stomped back into the Jumper.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

John had had a horrible night. His arm had plagued him, not allowing him to lie down comfortably in any position. He had waited for the eight hours to elapse until he could take another Tylenol, but the painkillers did only so much of a job to dull the sharp pain which by now was radiating well into his shoulder. 

The sun had just started to rise when John had gotten up from his uneasy resting place. Sitting at the mouth of the cave, he was watching the sun rise while he opened an MRE. John fished out the mint cookie and started eating. He wasn't really hungry, but the sugary snack was refuelling his energies. It was going to be a long day. He had promised Rodney that he was going to check out the energy source together with Ronon. He almost wished he could send Teyla and Ronon to do the task, but someone needed to watch Rodney's back. Not that he didn't trust the physicist with a gun; the man had learned a lot in the past year and a half. Rodney's aim wasn't even that bad, even if he sometimes still hesitated to fire. But compared to the rest of the geeks, Rodney was top notch. John shuddered to remember the time Carson had confronted a Wraith, gun in hand, offering medical help instead of opening fire. John shook his head. No, Teyla was needed at the Jumper. When Rodney was lost in his work, a whole herd of Wraith could sneak up on him without noticing.

John would wait a while longer until he woke up Ronon. Before the sun was up, the heat would be oppressive. Better not to walk four kilometres in sweltering heat, possibly carrying a hundred pounds of alien technology. Finished with the cookie, he shook the crumbs off his shirt

Footsteps approached from inside the cave and John spotted Rodney walking up to his position. The scientist was fairly wild haired, something he always accused John of, and looked ill rested.

"Major, have you even slept?" Rodney shot John an angry look, before he slumped down against the wall on the opposite site of the cave.

"Coffee?" John offered Rodney the coffee from his MRE, ignoring the question. Things between him and Rodney hadn't been too good lately and Rodney hadn't gotten over the professional disappointment that Duranda had been. Rodney wasn't used to being a failure. And he had nearly killed them in the process.

Rodney took the coffee and starting drinking, not saying another word. They had not spoken again after Rodney had stormed off the previous night. He'd stayed in the Jumper until dusk, and then he had joined them in the cave, not speaking much all evening. John needed him to snap out of it, if they were to continue going on missions together as a team. The asteroid storm wasn't as serious as it had seemed. Aside from his broken arm, nobody had been hurt in the crash and Rodney was able to repair the Jumper. But a crisis was bound to happen some time or other. John needed to be able to rely on Rodney.

"We should be leaving, Sheppard." Ronon's deep grumble came from the inside of the cave. John turned and saw Ronon walking up towards him, weapon in hand like always. John could understand why. At McMurdo, people would have looked funny, but since coming to the Pegasus Galaxy, the thought of carrying at least a handgun at all times seemed like a good idea.

"Don't you want to eat before we go? At least we brought plenty of food," John offered, not eager to get up just yet.

"I'll eat on the way. McKay's right, those funny PowerBars aren't that bad," Ronon said. "Toss me some."

He caught the bars easily and was about to stuff them into his various pockets, which Sheppard was sure, contained numerous weapons as well, when Sheppard stopped him.

"We'll take a back pack. I prefer actual food. Some water might not hurt and we need to carry the Ancient toys somewhere too." John got to his feet, careful not to jar his arm too much. Before he could go and get his pack from the cave, Teyla walked out, handing him the requested object.

"Good morning, Colonel Sheppard. Are you feeling any better?" she smiled and asked.

"My head hurts less." John returned the smile and grabbed the pack. "Thanks. We're checking out the energy source. Watch McKay's back while we are gone. We should be back this afternoon. I'll radio in every hour, but there is no telling what the range of these things is here, energy waves disturbing radio frequencies and all," John told her.

"I don't understand." Teyla frowned at his last sentence.  
"Frankly, I have no idea. That's Rodney's business. Hold down the fort." Teyla frowned again, but caught herself quickly. She had only met the humans the summer before last when they had come to her planet seeking allies from the Wraith. They could learn a lot from each other.

oOo

The citadel looked exactly like it had on the HUD. The hexagonal structure with gold walls and a dark greenish slanting roof was not unlike the architecture of Atlantis and other Ancient building John had seen. It stood about three stories high in a green meadow, untouched by the ages.

"It looks like the work of the Ancestors." Ronon spoke out what John had been thinking.

"Exactly. It's the only thing on the planet and it looks like it was built yesterday. That's the Ancients, all right," John agreed. "The energy signature is coming from inside. I'm not sure I'm reading this thing right--that's normally Rodney's gig--but it's no ZPM, I can say that." John looked at the portable Ancient scanner.

"Is it dangerous?" Ronon thought like a warrior.

"It's giving off energy, but it's not radioactive, I think," John said.

"We should have taken McKay, even if he is an annoying man," Ronon commented dryly. "Anyone home?"

"Nope." John glanced at the life signs detector. "Let's go in."

At first there was no apparent entrance in the wall. John tried to think at the building, tried to touch the wall, but nothing moved.

"Something wrong?" Ronon asked.

"With the gene? I don't think so. Never happened before. Maybe it only works for Ancients." John shrugged and stepped closer to examine the surface of the wall

Ronon shot him a strange look. "Step back."

John did just in time before a blaster shot hit the wall where he had just been standing. He stared at Ronon, who broke into a grin.

"What the hell..." Sheppard swore when Ronon pointed to a spot next to him.

"It's open. It was probably just stuck." Ronon grinned smugly and walked by Sheppard into the dark citadel.

Sheppard followed him, switching on his flashlight, as the lights didn't turn on when he stepped in.

"I'm starting to think this place wasn't build by the Ancient after all," John said. "We don't know too much about their history, aside from them being at odds with the Wraith. This thing could have been built by another civilisation inspired by the Ancients. Pretty much every planet we have been too so far has heard of the Ancients."

Ronon made a low noise that John interpreted as an affirmative.

The inside of the citadel was shrouded in deep blackness. The air smelled pure and it was much cooler than outside. John directed his flashlight to the ground, illuminating a shiny black floor, without a trace of dust.

"Just like Atlantis. When we first got there, after the city had been on the ground of the ocean for ten thousand years, it looked like the Ancients had left yesterday. Have you ever heard of a civilisation that could have created something as advanced as the Ancients?" John asked.

"Aside from the Wraith, no. They would have destroyed any civilisation that advanced far enough to threaten them," Ronon said solemnly.

John nodded. He had seen the MALP footage from Sateda. The Wraith had left the world in ruins. No one had survived.

"There it is. I think this is what we were looking for." The cast of John's flashlight fell on a silver cube on the ground. "The energy is coming from this thing."

He approached and took a closer look. The surface was smooth and dull to the eye. No displays, regulator, no nothing. John verified his readings, before he carefully reached to touch the cube.

It was cool to the touch, but when he put his hand on it, a projection appeared above it. A hologram.

"Ronon, have you seen this language before?" John asked, not recognizing the characters as Ancient, Genii or Wraith.

"I have never seen this language." Ronon joined him. "We should make a recording."

"Camera is in my pack," John said. "Maybe Teyla can decipher the message. The light's not good, but try to get a shot of it."

Ronon handled the camera while John held the flashlight. The hologram faded a minute or two after John had lifted his hand from the cube. Both men looked down at the silver box.

"We should take it back with us," Ronon said finally.

"You take it." John nodded at his broken arm. In truth, all the walking hadn't done his arm any favours.

"Whatever you say." Ronon picked up the box with ease and cradled in on his arm.

"It's not heavy," he said, noticing John's curious glance.

oOo

John was spent by the time he and Ronon returned to the crash site. The pain from his broken arm had spread again through his entire arm up into his shoulder and the headache had returned. He felt like he'd been marching in the dessert all day; it was like on the worst days in Afghanistan.

Teyla stood near the Jumper, P90 hefted to her flak vest. She waved to greet them.

"Everything quiet?" John asked.

"Nothing has happened. Dr. McKay has been working to repair the Jumper since you left," Teyla said. "What have you been able to find out about the energy source?"

"Well, Ronon brought it with him. McKay will have to take a look at it. Actually there is something for you to look at as well," John said tiredly, already taking down his backpack. Teyla hurried to help him manage the task with one arm.

"Thanks," John said softly. He walked over to the back of the Jumper. Rodney was sitting on one of the benches, laptop on his thighs. He was immersed in his work and didn't notice John approach.

"Rodney? How's the Jumper coming?" John asked, taking in a mess of strewn parts, power bar wrappers and Ancient instruments on the Jumper floor.

Rodney looked up at him, upset settling on his features.

"Diagnostic program is running. It will take another sixteen hours at least." Rodney clipped and turned back to his computer. "You should have Teyla change that bandage on your arm. You look feverish," he added.

John ignored him. "What about the dents in the hull. Are they going to be a problem? I never had a hull breach and I'm not planning on it."

"I can't exactly hammer them out. But the Jumper is going to fly," Rodney confirmed.

John nodded. He trusted Rodney, even after his gross miscalculation with the Ancient weapons system. He could understand Elizabeth's hesitance, but he thought it unfair of her. One mistake didn't change the long list of Rodney's accomplishments, both on Earth and in the Pegasus Galaxy.

"If the diagnostic doesn't need you…" John started.

"I'm needed here," Rodney cut him off. He sounded angry. John shrugged his good shoulder and left

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

"Your forearm is fractured in at least one place," Ronon diagnosed. John didn't know much about his time in the Sadetan military, but he had probably seen his share of combat injuries.

Teyla rummaged through the on-board first aid kit of the Jumper. "Here is the medication against infection." Teyla handed John a blister strip of pills.

"Antibiotics," John explained. "I'm not sure if Carson would think that's called for already." He washed down one of the pills with a gulp of water.

"Your arm is infected," Ronon stated in a manner that tolerated no argument. He pulled a gauze bandage from the packaging and wrapped it around John's arm. John flinched.

Turn around," Ronon commanded. "It will be the least painful if we tie your arm back against your chest."

John turned his back to Ronon just as Rodney walked up to them at the mouth of the cave. Rodney looked tense and tired and wordlessly sat down a few meters from them.

"Everything going all right?" John asked Rodney through the pain of Ronon pulling at his arm.

"Yes, we'll be on our way tomorrow morning," Rodney answered. He leaned against the rock wall. Despite the heat, he looked pale; his hair was wet with sweat. Teyla silently passed him his canteen from the stack of their supplies.

"We brought you the energy source from the citadel," John told Rodney. "It was just sitting in the middle in a dark room. Nothing on the walls or anything. The place wasn't reacting to the gene, so it probably wasn't Ancient. What do you make of it?"

Ronon carefully sat the silver box in front of Rodney. Rodney eyed it sceptically. It looked ordinary and plain to the naked eye. The sides were each about ten inches long; the vertices were sharp and exact. There wasn't a scratch on the smooth, but dull surface.

"You are sure this isn't just Ancient modern art?" Rodney asked more to himself than to them as he reached out and touched the box. Other than with John, his touch provoked no reaction. He slid his hand around the surface, a frown on his face.

"It's definitely some sort of metal. If Sam Carter were here, we'd know if it was Naquadah, but I'd say it is." Rodney pulled back and started with his Ancient scanner. "I was right. It's no ZPM," Rodney confirmed after a few seconds."

"Gee, Rodney, I figured that out all be myself," John sniped. The combination of pain, heat and exhaustion was getting to him. Ronon had probably been right about that infection, but John didn't like to be on the receiving end of medical care.

"Zelenka will have to do more tests once we are back on Atlantis. The medical scanners will probably tell us what's inside this thing. Glorified alien art," Rodney said flatly. John said nothing. It wasn't like Rodney to surrender a new discovery to his colleague without a fight. Zelenka was a brilliant scientist, but he was no Rodney McKay.

"You haven't seen the best thing yet. It's a hologram box." John put his hand on the box like he had back in the citadel and the projection of black text appeared back about a foot high above the box. Rodney twitched back by the sudden flash, but quickly caught himself. He leaned in to examine the hologram and John didn't fail to detect a hint of Rodney's natural intensity on his face. He started scribbling away on a piece of paper, his lips moving silently.

"Have you tried touching it anywhere else?" Rodney asked, his head buried in his scanner.

"I'm not fondling a piece of alien technology! Honest, I haven't tried yet." John concentrated, but thinking at the box didn't help. He touched the side panel, and the projection changed, now showing three large symbols in a column, fire red.

"It looks like a warning," Ronon commented.

"These symbols resemble the writings on a planet I visited as a child. Our village was attacked by three Darts. Those who survived ran through the Gate. We hid on a dark, deserted planet. There were great ruins covered in symbols like these and other languages. We first thought it was the world of the Ancients, but none of us had seen those symbols before," Teyla told them.

"What do you mean by dark planet?" Rodney asked impatiently.

"It was very strange. The sky was dark day and night. There were no living things, not even the smallest insects. Our group nearly starved to death because we couldn't hunt to feed ourselves. The adults finally had to venture off world to find food," Teyla explained. She had been to hundreds of worlds in her life, but this dark and dead world had frightened her even more than the Wraith.

"Nuclear fallout?" John asked. "Kolya was very interested in building an A-bomb. Maybe someone else got the job done before he did."

"No." Rodney shook his head. "The climate after a nuclear explosion of that magnitude would precipitate a new Ice Age. The Genii were at least another decade away from detonating their first bomb when we first met Cowen."

"Well, that was until we helped them," John said darkly. Rodney swallowed and looked down. John chided himself. He hadn't intended to remind Rodney of what had been neither his nor Rodney's finest hour in the Pegasus Galaxy, but he hadn't been able to forget that mistake. He had the feeling that they hadn't heard the last of the Genii, despite their tentative truce at the moment.

"Can you read it?" Ronon interrupted John's thoughts.

Teyla nodded. "Some. There were walls covered in Ancient and many other languages. My people don't pursue scholarship like you do. It's not a luxury we have. But we respect what the Ancients taught us. My father taught me the Ancestors' language. He took me to read the writing in the ruins."

Teyla moved closer and John reactivated the second hologram.

"It's a warning. The third symbol means 'danger', the second means 'time'. I don't know what the first one means. It's been a long time," she apologized. "Show me the first projection again."

John placed his hand back on the top and the small text of the black hologram reappeared.

"It starts with a greeting 'Welcome gracious appearing descendant'," Teyla translated. "Something 'places the power of activation to the gateway in the place of our legacy. The travellers' three choices await to the new worlds.' The key was buried safe to beware of danger or the youths until time was ready for our descendants to find new worlds in space beyond. A terrible mistake destroyed us and brought an enemy over this realm. The key was to be buried to be left for progeny to return for you will not repeat our mistakes.'" Teyla finished.

"I think we know that story," Rodney commented. "That's the story of the Ancients and the Stargate. 'gateway', 'other worlds', 'enemy', 'leaving the realm'. You found a story box." Rodney rolled his eyes.

"I'm not so sure, McKay. It says this is a key. The ring doesn't have a key," Ronon said.

"So it's DHD crystals. It all fits. Ancients, Stargates, genes. The decedents are people like our dear major; the cube reacted to his ATA gene," Rodney snapped angrily.

"It's Lt. Colonel," John corrected. "I don't think it's that simple. It has a lot in common with the Stargate. But Ronon is right, from what this says, this box is the key to getting to the Gateway 'in the place of their power'."

"Okay, this does not sound any more likely than what I just said." Rodney crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I admit that only an Ancient story box would come with a warning."

John tried two other sides of the silver cube, but he produced no other projections. He leaned back against the wall, not sure what to do now. It was usually Rodney pressing to figure out new technology, especially if there was a possibly of gaining an advantage. The silver cube definitely qualified and there Rodney was, sitting in his corner, looking stubborn and miserable. John had worked hard to get over his anger at Rodney, but the scientist seemed to do nothing to help him. One minute he was back to normal, but more often than not, he was snappish, angry and moody. John had no illusions; Rodney wasn't the type to open up, to anyone.

"We should check out the Jumper's data base. Maybe we can find some info about the place Teyla and her people escape to," John proposed. "Might help us find out who built this thing." He started to get up. Normally he wasn't so much for research in the field and he gladly left that to the geeks, but there was nothing to do on this planet and seeing Rodney brood in the corner made him irritable. Rodney, however, made no move to get up.

Teyla got to her feet. "I will accompany you. You might need my help finding the planet."

They walked down the short distance to the lake. The Jumper was still beached at the shore, where they had crashed the day before. From the distance, the ship looked fine; the hull wasn't broken and apart from dirt there was nothing wrong with the craft. Close up, John could see the coin-sized indentations. They had to have gone straight through the shield, John wondered. Maybe the Ancient shield had a similar defect to the Goa'uld force shields, which only protected against fast flying objects, but a thrown knife passed right through. He would have to ask Rodney about that. Later.

Teyla was already inside the Jumper, in front of the computer, waiting for John. He mentally called up the database.

"What else do you know about the planet?" John asked, ready to feed the information into the Jumper database.

"I was very young at the time, but before we ran through the Gate, I saw Oran touch these two symbols." She pointed them out on the Jumper dialling computer.

"All right, that's good." The characters appeared on the HUD display. "How many moons and suns were there?" Two years ago this question would have sounded insane to him, but now he lived in a mythical city in another Galaxy. Skies weren't always blue, humans were Wraith foods and cities could fly.

Teyla closed her eyes for a moment. "I don't know. The sky was so dark, like a cloud. I couldn't see anything in the sky. I was used to walking in the woods, using the stars to guide me. This planet was an enemy to all living things.

"Let's see what we get," John said. The HUD instantly displayed the record of the planet John and Teyla had been looking for.

A roughly Earth-sized planet at the outer edge of the Pegasus Galaxy called Voran by the native people. The Voran were classified as harmless humanoid with a compatible physiology.

Compatible for what?

The Ancients had set up a small colony on Voran, including a research facility. A total of 4,500 Ancients had settled on Voran in addition to 80, 000 indigenous settlers.

Earth seemed to be grossly over-populated in contrast to the civilisations of the Pegasus Galaxy.

Around 16,500 years ago, a group of Ancient and Voran researchers miscalculated the calibration of the Stargate and the catastrophe eradicated all life on the planet. A new Ice Age came over the planet, the atmosphere was filled with toxic dust, and the planet remained inhabitable.

The toxins had probably decayed over the millennia, since Teyla and her people had stayed on the planet for several weeks without problems, but it made sense why animal life had never retaken the planet. As Teyla had said, there had not even been an insect on Voran.

The technology that had caused the catastrophe had been taken apart by the Ancients and hidden away until their descendants were ready to make better use of the Stargate.

John frowned. The Stargate wasn't a dangerous technology. He had no idea how it was possible to eradicate an entire planet using a Stargate. He remembered reading some pretty strange things in SG-1's reports but not even Jack O'Neil had pulled that off. There wasn't any more in the Jumper database. It wasn't like the gigantic database in the city, which would take them many more years to decipher, even with the increased manpower from the Daedalus.

"Do you believe that the box we found today is part of this technology?" Teyla asked him quietly.

"It sounds probable. I only wish we knew more about what this stuff does. If there is a chance that it blows up, we are leaving the box here," John decided.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

John was grateful by the time the approaching sunset was starting to show on the horizon. Rodney had spent most of the afternoon alone in the Jumper and John had just been glad that Rodney wasn't arguing. He had hoped that things would work themselves out if they just tried, but Rodney didn't appear to want to work things out between them.

John had hoped that Rodney would get over being angry at himself and forget for a moment that this had only affected only him alone. But he was being his typical self, only thinking about one person - Rodney. He had apologized to John and had seemed rather desperate for forgiveness but not so much genuinely contrite. He was more astounded and angry at the possibility that he could have failed at such a scale. He and Rodney were overdue for a conversation, but he wasn't sure the physicist would listen.

At the moment, John's biggest concern was getting back to Atlantis in one piece. The Jumper looked pretty banged up; John had seen the dents in the hull. He hadn't seen any cracks and Rodney had assured him there weren't any, but John still felt uneasy about the rather long trip back. He had crashed a Jumper before. They had been shot down from low altitude on a mission a few months ago and that Jumper hadn't come up again. They had been under intense time pressure to repair the craft then--a group of armed prisoners had been threatening them--but still the Jumper had to be retrieved later and dragged through the Gate. They had to escape through the Stargate.

This time, they had no choice but to get the Jumper operational again. It would take around ten hours for a rescue team to reach their location, but their colleagues in the City had no idea where to start looking for them along the route to Karas. It was too dangerous to turn on the hyperspace beacon. The Wraith still believed that Atlantis had been destroyed, and if they found the Jumper, they would realize that they had been fooled. Their hopes rested on Rodney. John hadn't dared to ask about the progress of the computer diagnostic that Rodney was running. He had learned years ago not to ask unnecessary questions. If there were problems, Rodney would mention them if need be.

John checked his wristwatch; it was past seven p.m. He was allowed another dose of Tylenol. Over the course of the second day, the pain had gotten worse, not better. John hadn't taken the bandage off again after Ronon had changed it in the morning, but from the throbbing beneath it, he could tell that the Satedan had been right--he had caught an infection. He hadn't been around when his team-mates, presumably Ronon, had done first aid on his injured arm, but there had probably been soot and maybe fragments from the explosion in the wound. The thought made John dread the coming night and the ten-hour flight back to Atlantis. John would be able to fly the Jumper with only one hand. Not only had the Ancients built an efficient autopilot system which would bring them safely back to Atlantis on its own, but the Puddle Jumper responded to John's mental commands. He could always ask Rodney to take the controls for the trip home; almost all of the gene carriers had been given pilot training since their arrival in Atlantis fourteen months ago. Rodney still couldn't fly in a straight line, but he had come a far way since his rather rocky first attempts. John just wasn't sure this mission was a particularly good time for Rodney to get some more piloting practise.

John washed down two Tylenol with the rest of the water in his canteen. They had filled up their canteens on Karas. Rodney had taken his with him on the Jumper and John had just finished the last of his. Ronon and Teyla had brought all their supplies into the cave. It wasn't time to be worried yet; they had carried an emergency supply of water on the Jumper.

John slowly got to his feet. After sitting in the same position for hours, his joints had locked into place and the Tylenol hadn't kicked in yet.

They had packed up their supplies some twenty feet into the cave to shield them from predators just in case there was native wildlife. So far, they hadn't observed any animal live on the planet, not even the presence of insects. Things weren't looking good, should they be trapped for a longer period. There was no clean source of water and no plant or animal life; they could be in for a couple of very hard days while waiting for a team to come to their rescue.

The walk downhill to the shore was more painful than John remembered. It seemed that his arm was getting more and more painful every hour. Every movement jarred at the broken bones and sent a stab of pain across his arm and upper body.

Despite the cooling temperature of the evening, the combination of a lingering infection, pain and exertion had John sweating and breathing hard before he reached the Jumper. John bent over and braced his good arm on his knee to catch his breath. He hadn't felt this exhausted since the Wraith had besieged Atlantis. In the days and weeks before the Wraith's inevitable arrival, the frantic search for a defence against their enemy had kept them up for days at a stretch.

Not for the first time, John had the faint feeling that something was wrong. In the back of his mind, alarm bells had been ringing since their arrival on the planet, but he was becoming more and more aware that they were in danger. John couldn't pin down the feeling, but there was something about this place that set him off.

It was already fairly dim, but there was no light coming from the Jumper. The lake was perfectly silent; all John could hear was the sound of his own breath.

It was unlike any place John had been to before. Even the desert in Afghanistan hadn't been such a dead and lifeless place. John felt a shiver run over his back. Determinedly, he pulled his jacket closer and walked towards the darkened Jumper.

"Rodney!" John called to announce his presence, not to alarm Rodney. There was no response. John stepped around. It was dark inside the Jumper and at first, John couldn't see the physicist.

"Rodney?" He called again, a bit louder this time. The sound of his own voice sounded foreign to him; the sound disappeared into the empty desert around him

It was almost black inside the Jumper. John stumbled and nearly fell over something on the floor.

His eyes were just adjusting to the darkness when John heard a noise coming from outside. He whirled around, but before he could see anything, a heavy weight tackled him to the ground. The ensuing scream echoed from the Jumper walls.

"Rodney!" John gasped. The pain from his broken arm was driving tears in his eyes and the weight pressing him to the ground was lying very uncomfortably on his ribcage.

"What the hell!" A very bright light blinded John and he had to close his eyes, but he recognised the voice immediately as Rodney's.

"Major! I could have shot you! Why were you sneaking up on my like a Goddamn Wraith!"

"Put the light away!" John shielded his eyes with a hand and blinked at Rodney.

Rodney finally set down the storm light on one of the benches and sat down. John sat back up, very aware that the incident hadn't done his broken arm any good. The fracture hurt viciously and he didn't feel any benefit of the Tylenol he had taken earlier. He was about to give Rodney a good lecture about leaving the Jumper unguarded, but when he looked at Rodney, he was a miserable and exhausted man. Rodney sat on the bench, shoulders, slumped and eyes barely open.

John swallowed his anger. "Rodney, are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Rodney replied in a flat tone of voice.

"Let's go back to the cave. We can take turns guarding the Jumper, just in case there is anybody out there," John proposed, trying to sound more cheerful than he felt.

Rodney nodded and followed John back to the cave without comment.

John didn't intend to mention the incident between him and Rodney, but he hadn't considered the sharp senses of the Pegasus Galaxy natives. He hadn't even sat down when Ronon shot him a telling look. And Teyla asked: "Is everything all right, Colonel Sheppard?"

"Yeah, I think I should have a look at that burn," John grudgingly admitted.

"I will gladly give you a hand." If Teyla suspected he was in pain, she said nothing. Instead, she brought their rather meagre first aid kit. Dr. Beckett had ordered the kit stocked up with some non-standard extras after the first few missions, when they had run into some nasty critters.

John started shrugging off his uniform jacket. Teyla was watching him silently, but when he began to tug at his tee shirt with one hand, Teyla pulled it over his head without comment. John hated relying on someone else's help, but at least Teyla didn't make a fuss about it.

She quickly untied Ronon's bandage that had tied John's arm to his chest. As soon as support holding his arm gave way, a stab of pain shot through his arm. John hadn't known that a simple fracture could hurt that much, but then he had never walked around with an untreated fracture for days before.

"Your hand feels cold," Teyla remarked and gently squeezed it. "Can you feel this?"

"Yeah, but it's sorta numb," John replied. "Can you feel a pulse on my hand?" John asked the critical question. If he had twisted his broken arm in the wall badly enough to cut off blood flow from a major artery, he needed to get his arm set fast.

Teyla started unwrapping his forearm. The bandage and gauze pads were sticking to the burns on his arm and John had to fight not to wince as Teyla peeled them off.

Ronon had definitely been right. The burns were infected. His skin was angry red, inflamed and blistered. Teyla and Ronon had done their best to wash away the debris and soot, but there were still oozing spots and blisters, probably from embedded splinters of the console.

"Give me your arm." Ronon walked up to John and Teyla. Ronon was holding a canteen. He pulled John's arm over with more care than John would have expected from Ronon and started pouring the contents of the canteen over the burns on John's arm. In the poor light, it looked like water, but it smelled strongly of Iodine.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" John raised an eyebrow. Lieutenant Ford had been the one with the medical training on the team; the rest of them had participated in Beckett's field training for the Pegasus Galaxy.

"I'm sure Beckett mentioned it," Ronon replied calmly.

John would have returned a reminder for Ronon to pay better attention in the future, but the mixture that Ronon had poured over his arm burnt like hell. John had to grind his teeth together not to yelp when he had the feeling of being bitten by thousands of fire ants at the same time.

"It's working," Ronon commented dryly and sat down next to Teyla. "But you have a problem, Sheppard."

"I know, I fell," John admitted and nodded. He had seen it too. The fracture hadn't been clearly visible before. But now, although the bone hadn't broken the skin, the bump was clearly visible under the skin. John hurt just looking it his arm and he knew it needed to be set soon, before he got to Atlantis.

"Has either of you done this before?" John asked.

Teyla and Ronon both nodded. It figured. They had both been on the run from the Wraith for years; do-it-yourself medical skills came in handy.

"It's a shame we didn't bring any strong drink. You could use it now," Ronon stated coolly.

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I think I'll rather go with the painkillers," John said and turned around. The truth was he didn't feel at all confident at the thought of Ronon resetting his arm. He was rather fond of the appendage and while he didn't particularly distrust Ronon's medical skills, he didn't relish the thought of his bones fusing together crookedly. But he couldn't wait until he could get an X-ray and a professional opinion.

"We should get it over with as long as there is still some natural light," Teyla remarked, as she came over and carried one of the preloaded morphine syringes.

John looked away. He was a in a lot of pain now, but it was going to get a lot worse when Ronon set his arm. It was going to be excruciating. He knew he was going to need the morphine then.

Teyla had paid attention in Beckett's courses and knew where to hit him. She jabbed him in his exposed upper arm, straight into the muscle.

The effects were immediate. John knew that the preloaded syringes from the field kit didn't contain enough morphine to knock someone out; it was just enough to tie you over until medical help arrived.

The warm and heavy feeling wasn't as unpleasant as John remembered from a far past time. After a day and a night of unrelenting pain that the Tylenol tablets had never completely controlled, the relief was a blessing and he didn't so much mind the numbing fog that settled over his mind.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

John screamed. Even the morphine hadn't managed to dilute the white hot pain of the broken bone being slid back into place. John had somehow hoped that if setting the bone would hurt too much, he'd pass out, but passing out was the impossible dream. Ronon even touching his injured arm hurt and when he moved the fractured limb to set the bone, John felt like the morphine wasn't even in his system.

After an eternity, long after Ronon had splinted his arm with two metal rods that normally made up the frame of a sturdy back pack and long after Ronon had tied his arm back against his body for support, the pain receded and John's other senses returned with some clarity, although still dulled by the morphine.

Teyla offered him a drink of water and after some urging on her part, he accepted even though he really felt nauseous. He balled up his jacket as well as he could with only one arm and leaned back. Tired from the drug and the pain, John was about to fall asleep.

He had dozed off when Teyla tapped on his shoulder. She carried the MRE packet he had opened in the morning. John only briefly looked at it. He had already eaten the dessert and McKay had gotten the coffee ration. There was still the awful tasting fruit drink mix, which John usually gave to Rodney and the main meal - spaghetti with meatballs. Not the worst, which was the chilli in John's opinion, but not as good as the pseudo-cheeseburgers which were the closest you could come to any kind of burger in the Pegasus Galaxy. Finally, John fished out the drink mix. It was cherry flavour, which was just as well with him.

Teyla went to search for a canteen as theirs were already empty. Ronon had emptied one from their extra supply to wash out John's wound, leaving Teyla to go back into the cave to search for another canteen of water.

She came back minutes later with more water. John didn't want to ask how little water they had left; he suspected there wasn't much left. They had all be drinking a lot in the heat of the day on the desert planet and they had only reluctantly refilled their water supply on Kara after seeing the conditions around the village water pump. It was only good that John had decided to be on the safe side after all, just in case. It was not the first time that the worst case scenario had come to pass.

John couldn't shake the ominous feeling that there was something lurking in the darkness. He could feel the danger waiting for them but there was nothing out there. The desert was vast and empty, there was not a single tree, not a single rock that could hide a predator, yet John couldn't shake the vague impression that they were not alone.

He fell asleep late that night and slept fitfully.

oOo

John opened his eyes to an unexpected noise the next morning. The sound of hard rain, amplified within the cave, had driven him from sleep. John slowly got up. Ronon's efforts at first aid were hindering his movements, but for the first time since he had broken his arm, he could move with relatively little pain.

A tall figure was standing at the mouth of the cave. From the height, John could tell that it was Ronon. The Satedan was staring out into the desert, weapon at the side, as if he was expecting trouble. Ronon was always expecting trouble. John joined him and noticed how much cooler it had gotten outside.

"There are no animals here. They should have sensed the rain," Ronon said to no one in particular. Sheppard had observed the lack of any plant or animal life himself, but it hadn't been due to extreme weather conditions.

"I noticed. It doesn't have to mean anything," John ventured. He had a faint inkling that there was significance to Ronon's observation, as Teyla had told him about a similar planet she had visited as a girl. On both planets, there had been writing in the same obscure language. Normally, this wasn't John's department. The expedition had anthropologists, linguists and archaeologists who were just waiting for a nice alien ruin to work on. John just made sure the place was safe for the geeks. He had read enough mission reports from the teams at the SGC to know what could happen off-world.

Ronon didn't comment on John's speculation but continued to stare out into the desert, searching for a threat that wasn't there yet. Confident that if they were about to be attacked, nobody would get past Ronon, John walked back inside the cave and started on preparing breakfast.

They had brought enough food of their own and they had received gifts from the Kara. Alien food was sometimes a challenge but the peach look-alikes had been among the better things John had tasted so far in the Pegasus Galaxy. The worst had been the tava beans. John had never actually tasted them, but their private feud with the local atomic power had gotten started over them.

Their food would last them for at least another week, probably two if they made an effort of it. There was enough water for the day, provided they didn't go on another hike. It was raining and collecting rainwater was a possibility. They wouldn't have to worry about sour rain and heavy metal pollutants in the Pegasus Galaxy, but John didn't like the fact that they were on a dead planet. Hopefully, Rodney's Ancient gadgets would be able to tell them what, if anything, was in the water. For the moment, Rodney was crumpled on his side, sleeping peacefully and John wasn't going to disturb him.

oOo

Rodney looked miserable. His sunburn was starting to peel, leaving his face red with white splotches; his hair was sticking up at odd angles and his wet blue tee-shirt was clinging to him unfavourably.

He wasn't deterred by any of it. "There is nothing, nothing at all. I told you, you are wasting my time. Time I could spend getting us out of here. But you all seem to be happy to stay on this wonderful planet! Well, I'm not. So, excuse me, I'm leaving!" Rodney tossed down the scanner and stalked out of the cave.

Teyla raised an eyebrow. "This is unusual, even for Dr. McKay."

John picked up the discarded scanner. The Ancients had built things to last for the ages. S hissy fit from a mere human scientist could harm an Ancient scanner. John put the scanner back in Rodney's backpack. The scientist would probably be looking for it later.

"Now that we know that the water is clean, we should gather some while it is raining. I don't want to take any water from the lake. We still don't know exactly how the Jumpers work, but I don't want to take the chance that anything leaked in there," John explained.

"We will take care of this," Teyla replied. "You should rest. You will need your strength for the trip."

Ronon and Teyla gathered their gear and walked out into the rain, leaving John behind in the damp cave. It hadn't rained for twelve hours yet, but the air was already hydrated and the water from the atmosphere was starting to seep into his clothes. John had no experience in tropical climate, but he was starting to loathe it.

Opening the packaging with the help of his teeth, John started munching on an apple cinnamon PowerBar. He wasn't a big fan of the sticky, dry, overly sweet ersatz food, but it supplied energy in compact form. John wasn't feeling hungry, but he knew the physical demands of his job too well to skip a meal.

He remembered Beckett's talk about always finishing the whole round of antibiotics and since he had gotten started with them, he took another one of the pills. Eyeing the few Tylenol tablets they had left, John decided that he would do without, at least for the moment, when he had to do nothing more than sit around and wait for Rodney to finish up the repairs on the Jumper. It was just wait and hope for the best.

oOo

Three hours later, John was starting to get nervous. Ronon and Teyla had returned. They had been successful in their mission to gather rainwater.. If they were unhappy about the fact that they were both dripping wet, neither of them complained.

Outside, what had been planes of dirt and dust was turning into a swamp. The water didn't seem to be absorbed by deeper layers of the ground; everything just mixed up on the surface, leaving mud behind.

It was only lucky that they had made their camp in a cave uphill from the lake in a wall of rock. That way, at least their supplies remained dry.

The planet seemed unpleasant any way John looked at it. They had arrived to a desert wasteland in scorching heat. The lake should have been a clue to the climatic changes. Over night, the planet had turned into a rainy swampland. John couldn't wait to get back to Atlantis.

At 1400 hours, Rodney still wasn't back from the Jumper. His radio was lying on top of his backpack. John had expected the scientist to return for lunch. Rodney was a dedicated workaholic, but he had a very healthy sense of self-preservation and never missed a meal.

Rodney had huge concerns about hypoglycaemia, but John wasn't sure how well founded they were. Rodney had ended up in the infirmary once for a short time, after working himself into the ground. It had been after the Wraith had launched their attacked on Atlantis. It had been a tough time, not only for Rodney.

'"I will check on Rodney," John said and got up. His arm still hurt, but not as badly as it had the previous day. Still, he was looking forward for once to seeing Beckett.

"You want me to come with you?" Ronon asked from his corner.

"I'll be fine," John said firmly. He and Ronon had an understanding that John was the one who gave the orders, but sometimes, John still had the impression that Ronon thought John wasn't doing a very good job. This mission was a prime example. John didn't like to go all Mr. US Air Force on his team, and he hadn't respected COs who needed to.

Teyla understood the military concept of following orders and she had excellent diplomatic skills. She was used to giving orders among her own people, but had no problems taking them either.

Rodney was Rodney. John had read McKay's file, so he knew that Rodney had been employed by the Air Force for almost fifteen years, nine of those years with the Stargate program, and it was long enough to know how things worked in the military,. His file was impressive, but John hadn't picked him only because of his file. The best men didn't always have the best files. But Rodney was a genius and he performed just as well under pressure. He had earned his place on the team in the last fourteen months. Duranda had been a disaster and Rodney had been wrong in more ways than one, but there was no going back now.

Rodney had apologized to Elizabeth, John, Radek and pretty much everyone else he had insulted. Caldwell and the Daedalus had set course for Earth, along with the bad news, but they wouldn't be back for another month. If Rodney was worried about fall-out back home, he had never mentioned it.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

The rain fell firm and almost hot. John was wet to his skin within seconds. He could see only a few feet ahead through the sheets of rain. Carefully, he started to walk downhill. With every step he sank deeper into the mud. Having only one arm to keep his balance, John's descent was slow; he wanted to avoid another fall at all cost.

The hill hadn't appeared half as steep before the rain had started. When John looked back up, pants smeared with mud up to his thighs, he could see nothing but a vague shape in the rain.

John turned back towards the Jumper, at least where he thought the Jumper was. There was nothing there. The darkened sky and heavy rain hindered his vision, but he should be able to see the lake and the Jumper in the distance. John turned ninety degrees - nothing. Another ninety - nothing. Two more turns and he had come full circle. There was nothing out there, but rain. The uneasy feeling John had had before was back where he had started. He told himself not to panic and tapped on his radio.

"Ronon, Teyla, this is Sheppard. Please respond."

All he heard in response was the sound of the falling rain.

John felt for the pocket of his jacket. Relief shot through him when he felt the hard, flat object under his fingers. He pulled out the device and held it to read the screen. There was nothing. No living being registered within the range of the Ancient scanner. It couldn't be. Both the Jumper and the cave were within the radius covered by the life signs detector. John concentrated hard, trying mentally to connect to the technology, but he couldn't. His mind felt nothing to reach out to, but John wasn't sure whether the detector worked that.

All the alarm bells in his head were going off at the same time. John drew his Beretta.

Thunder cracked somewhere in the distance, loud and hard. Lightning followed immediately. In the flash of illumination, John suddenly saw a towering dark building. It was huge, roughly shaped like a pyramid and it hadn't been there before. The bolt of lighting had only sparked for the fraction of a second, but it had been enough to imprint the image on John's mind.

The sky was in uproar, but John didn't pay any attention to the thunder and the worsening rain, as he tried to make out the structure he had seen just seconds earlier.

There was something dark ahead in front of him, but the building storm didn't allow John to make out clear details. He couldn't explain how they could have missed a structure this big before, in the middle of the dessert. The Wraith could create illusions--John was aware of that--but nothing as elaborate as this, and the life signs detector would have alerted him of their presence.

John tried again to raise his team on the radio, but again, there was no answer. He wished he had taken at least a flashlight. All he had was his Beretta, the life signs detector and a Power Bar.

By now, the wind was blowing the rain sideways and the sky had darkened even more. There was no doubt that a storm was brewing. John knew he had to get back to the cave, or at least to some shelter before the wind picked up full speed. The rain was already pelting against his face hard, and his sense didn't stand a chance against the rain and wind.

John had a good sense of direction. He didn't have Teyla's instincts, but he had years of training on his side. He had turned in an exact 360 degree circle, so he could still pinpoint the direction he had come from and the way to the Jumper at the shore. The only problem was that where the lake should be, he had seen something different, or at least had thought he had seen something.

John chose the prudent alternative and headed back to where he had come from. A sense of danger was still tingling in the back of his head but the life sign detector, his only reliable source of information under present conditions, didn't show anyone in the vicinity.

Gun ready to fire, John headed back to where the incline had been. Going for back-up was the best choice in the situation. Within two minutes, daylight had almost disappeared. The little visibility he had had before was gone. With the storm starting to brew now, the strange building or whatever it was that he had seen was taking a backseat to getting back to the safety of the cave.

John counted his steps in the darkness. Twenty. He was walking through deep mud. Thirty, still nothing. He should be getting to the incline by now. He saw nothing but darkness ahead. He tried the radio for the third time, but there was no response, not even so much as static. It was as if he had walked down the hill and stepped off the planet. And among all the crazy things that had happened to him in the Pegasus Galaxy, this was new.

Five more steps and John still had nothing but mud under his boots. The wind building up, and combined with the pelting rain, the sound of rushing water filled his ears. Even though he had to be close to the cave, his voice would never carry over the noise of the storm. John had to make it on foot; he couldn't wait out the storm in the middle of the dessert unprotected. It might be different from desert on Earth, but once it started to rain, they could experience massive flooding.

John took another step forwards and stepped into nothing.

oOo

John heard muffled sounds, somewhere off to his side. As he quietly listened, they became more distinct and he recognised familiar voices.

"Finally, it's time it stopped raining. This is the worst planet we have ever been to! Everything's wet. My boots are never going to dry. Foot rot, I'm telling you!" That could only be Rodney.

"You should eat something, McKay." A deep and powerful voice responded and something scratched across a surface.

"I think Colonel Sheppard is starting to wake up." The voice was female. There was more indistinct noise and something soft and warm touched his forehead.

"Colonel Sheppard, can you hear us? You need to wake up."

"Sheppard! Wake up!" Ronon ordered and suddenly John recalled the last time he had been down-and-out, when he had woken up to Ronon slapping him in the face. That he wanted to avoid.

John opened his eyes. There was nothing, just shadows and darkness. John remembered the rain and the darkness before he had fallen and panicked. It had to have been some nightmare. John struggled to sit up, reach for his gun, but strong arms were already holding him down, applying pressure to his recent injury. The pain immobilized him quickly and John had no choice but to stay put. Suddenly a light came on, so bright that he had to close his eyes for a moment.

"It's all right, Colonel Sheppard. You are safe." He heard Teyla's reassuring voice and opened his eyes again.

The light was coming from a storm light Rodney was holding. They were in a cavern of some sort. The walls consisted of solid rock, closing into a domed ceiling over them, but from where he was lying, he couldn't see daylight anywhere.

"Where are we?" It was the first of many questions on his mind.

"Deeper inside the cave. The wind was blowing in water; we had to seek shelter. Hopefully the storm will soon end," Teyla replied. She seemed calm, like nothing unusual at all had happened.

"Rodney found you lying outside in the streaming rain," Ronon explained before John could ask.

"Yes, you were lucky, major. Without me, your skinny air force ass wouldn't be here now. What did you do out there anyways?" Rodney seemed chipper, although he was dripping wet, like the rest of John's team.

"I was looking for you. What else should I be doing out there?" John was getting the feeling that something was not all right. He pushed himself up into a sitting position. The last time he had had that feeling, it had turned out that he was being help prisoner in an artificial reality. His dead friends showing up had tipped him off that time. It wasn't going to happen to him again, this time; John was going to be ready.

"So, how is the Jumper doing?" He asked casually, and reached to feel for his side arm, just in case. It wasn't there.

"I managed to lock everything before the storm got going. Once the storm dies down, we should be good to go," Rodney replied. "Not unless you want to go up there and risk electrocution."

John had to agree, it was better to wait out the storm. One crash per mission was enough. He wasn't content with what Rodney and the others had told him though. Something didn't add up. John clearly recalled the huge black building he had seen in the brief moment of lightning. He was sure it hadn't been a dream. It wasn't just that, the seeming error of the life signs detector and his 'accident'.

John went to search the pockets of his jacket, when he realized that he had been stripped to his tee shirt.

"Rodney, would you please hand me the life signs detector?"

"That planet is dead. Don't worry, not even Ronon is worried." Rodney handed John the device.

Like all Ancient technology, it automatically activated in the hands of a gene carrier. Like John had expected, it displayed three life signs around him.

"Rodney, can you tell if this was malfunctioning at some point?" John asked, not sure how much to reveal. If this was an artificial reality, like he had experienced on the planet of the fog-aliens, he couldn't trust anyone.

"Those things weren't made by Microsoft." Rodney shrugged and took the scanner from John. "I can access the memory. It records the scanned data and the location relative of the nearest hyperspace beacon." Rodney got up and walked over to his backpack.

"What are you thinking?" Ronon asked. John had hoped the others would stay out of this, but as soon as Ronon sensed the mere possibility of a threat, he was ready to engage it.

"I don't know," John admitted a half-truth. "I used it to find Rodney earlier, when the storm was just starting out. The life signs detector wasn't showing anything. I just want to make sure we are not missing anything." He hoped that would sound believable. It was true; he was just omitting a few details.

"I don't think the Wraith could land in this storm," Ronon considered. "No one can live on this planet for long and the race that built the citadel is long gone. I do not believe we are in danger here." Ronon crossed his arms over his chest. He too was dripping wet. Sheppard wondered whether they too had been out in the rain.

"Still, I'd rather know for sure. We had our surprises before." The heavy wind and rain reminded John of another time when a threat had come unexpected because they had trusted the wrong people.

"As you wish, _Master_." Rodney balanced his open laptop on top of a crate of equipment from the Jumper. The scientist started working, leaning over the keyboard. The only sounds in the cave were the rain and the soft clicking of keys.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: jnp asked when the EFC characters were going to show up. They will. Some of you probably already have an idea about how that's going to happen.

'_Are we there yet?'_ John was just waiting for McKay to ask. They had taken off in the early morning. They rain hadn't stopped yet, but had calmed down to a steady drizzle. Rodney had gone over everything once more at John's insistence and had declared the Jumper fit for the return trip. John had shot a last glance at the dents in the hull, but as far as he could tell the Jumper was running smoothly under his mental commands. The cracked control panel was slightly disturbing, especially since it had blown up at him in the crash, but the Jumper was obviously sturdier than it looked. Flying with just one arm took up enough of his concentration, at least for the first hour of their trip. Rodney was chatting idly along, not minding that no one was answering or listening for that matter. Teyla was trying to sleep on the back bench of the Jumper and Ronon--he was just being Ronon, looking ahead into space looking grumpy.

Rodney had handed the life signs detector back to him before they had boarded the Jumper. _There is nothing wrong with it, maybe you were imagining things._ It wasn't like Rodney to brush him off like this. Sheppard was sure there was something wrong. Rodney was being odder than usual and he was starting to be sure there was more to it than the rift between them after the Doranda fiasco. He had considered talking to Rodney about it, but at the best of times, winnowing information out of the scientist was difficult. In their current phase of their relationship, Rodney would clam up immediately. John didn't pursue the topic of the life signs detector and simply asked Rodney whether the Jumper was ready, switching the topic to something more innocuous.

oOo

"Can't you put just a little more speed in it, Colonel?" Rodney asked from the back of the Jumper. He sounded like he was speaking and eating at the same time.

"You should know it, McKay. I'm flying as fast as it goes. You'll be home in the lab with your reactor in nine hours and fifty-six minutes. No actually, it will be a bit longer. I'm not sure this thing puts in the delay for dialing the gate."

"Well, thanks for nothing." Rodney sounded, genuinely pissed, but maybe it was just that they had been away from privacy, a good night's sleep and real food for a bit too long.

"I thought you with your super genes could maybe get some extra speed out of the Jumper. I mean, the Ancient technology almost begs you to use it when you just think at it," Rodney accused, still munching on something.

John turned around. The Jumper was pretty much flying itself. Rodney sat on one of the benches in the back, a laptop standing on the floor next to him; he was holding what looked like a PowerBar.

Teyla was lying on the opposite bench, arm thrown over her head. She'd decided to try to get some sleep a few hours ago. John couldn't imagine anyone getting some sleep with Rodney never shutting up for more than ten minutes, but if anyone could do it, Teyla could.

"Believe me; I want to get back to Atlantis. Elizabeth will have us both for being two days late. But at least I can finally have a shower," John said. He could feel every one of the last five days.

"I'm going to put the Jumper on autopilot for a while. I could use some rest." John set the controls for the autopilot and headed for the benches in the back of the Jumper. He wasn't so much tired as he was under strain from the pain of his injury. The OTC painkiller wasn't adept at managing the pain from broken bones but he needed all the concentration he could muster to pilot the Jumper. Fortunately the Ancients had created a very efficient autopilot, capable of safely getting them back to Atlantis.

oOo

"What's going on?" Rodney yelled.

Teyla sat up and looked around blearily and Ronon sat up straighter in his seat. Ignoring his injury, John hurried to the front of the Jumper. In his mind, he was already running through the ship's systems, searching for the cause of the alarm. He cursed himself for his lack of familiarity with the Ancient craft as he sat in front of the console.

"There is a Wraith ship; it's dead ahead from us. I have no idea why the alarm didn't go off earlier." A blast shook the ship the moment John finished his sentence.

"They are firing on us!" Rodney screamed. "Do something. Like returning fire."

"What do you think I'm doing?" John ordered the ship to return fire on the enemy vessel, but before he hit the target, another volley hit them, rocking the Jumper hard.

"Doesn't feel very effective from where I'm sitting."

"We should try to escape. We might be able to outrun them," Teyla suggested, trying to be helpful.

John wished they'd all be silent. He was seeing the battle take place three-dimensions inside his head, and it took all the concentration he could muster to try to outmaneuver the Wraith ship.

Suddenly, the lights inside the Jumper flickered, and then they were cloaked in darkness.

"What the hell!"

"I think this constitutes a problem."

"Did we lose all the power?"

John stared at the lifeless panel. In a moment, everything had gone dark. The Wraith had to have noticed. John couldn't reach out to the ship anyone. There was nothing he could feel. It was exactly that same thing that had happened during the horrible storm.

"We are going to die." It had to be Rodney to spell out what they were all thinking.

It was a matter of waiting for the Wraith ship to fire at the Jumper and shatter them into a million pieces of space junk. John had been there before, when the Wraith had besieged the City. He had been ready to take the step and fly a Jumper carrying a nuclear warhead into a Wraith cruiser. No doubts. No regrets.

How would the end be? Would it hurt? Or would the explosion consume him before any sensation could reach his brain? It was over before John could finish his thought. There was a blinding white light filling the Jumper and then the world ended.

oOo

Awakening was painful. John's ears were ringing, like he had been to the firing range without earplugs or had been too close to something exploding. He hoped for the former. Explosions were a bitch. Especially the nuclear kind.

Sheppard opened his eyes and the ceiling of the Jumper swam into view. It hadn't been a dream. He remembered clearly. They had been engaged by the Wraith and they had been losing. After their power had failed, they had been sitting ducks, waiting for the Wraith to blow them to pieces. Something must have stopped the Wraith and it hadn't been good old-fashioned mercy. John had seen how the Wraith extracted information from their prisoners. He would be better off dead.

John sat up and had a look around. His teammates were still lying in various spots around the Jumper. John got up, walked over to Rodney, who lie slumped on the bench in the back. Reaching to feel for a pulse, Rodney started to stir and opened his eyes.

"Major, how...?"

"Don't ask me how. I don't know why we're still here." John shrugged.

"Colonel Sheppard. Are you all right?" Teyla had recovered on the other bench.

"As far as I can tell we are okay." John answered.

"Great to hear that you know that," Rodney shot back, but he smiled. Rodney slid away from Sheppard and headed to the front.

"The lights are back on," Teyla stated the obvious.

"I hadn't noticed myself, but now that you say it, so are the rest of our systems. Everything is back on-line, even the weapons," Rodney diagnosed, leaning over the console in the front of the Jumper.

"We should fire on the Wraith while they don't expect it," Ronon suggested.

John walked up to join him. "On the subject, where are the Wraith? They should have blown us to bits while we were down. It's not like them to do anything half way."

"I can't detect them anywhere out there. They are gone."

"Gone? Could they have cloaked? They popped out of nowhere. They might have disappeared into hyperspace, or cloaked."

"No, they are gone...gone."

"Gone gone?'" John repeated.

"They were never here. The Jumper hasn't been damaged at all. Apart from the damage we suffered in the crash, the Jumper is fine. I can't..."

John stopped Rodney's rant before it had started. "So you are saying the attack didn't happen. Is it possible it was some sort of illusion? During the storm on the planet, something strange happened to me. I though I saw something, but then it was gone. I'm wondering if this is connected." John hadn't wanted to bring up his experience from the planet, mainly because he wasn't sure what to believe himself, but he couldn't help wondering whether they weren't all suffering from some sort of sensory delusion.

"The Wraith can create illusions, but only when they are present, and I have never heard of them creating anything as elaborate as this," Teyla said.

"What purpose would this ploy serve, assuming the Wraith are responsible?" Ronon was thinking strategically.

"Gathering information about Atlantis maybe. But if this is a ruse, it's not very smart. Didn't they think we'd notice?" Rodney said smugly.

"That's not the point right now. I'm more concerned with finding out is what this is and, more importantly, figuring out what to do now. If the Wraith are involved, I'm sure they are going to show up again." John sat down, again. The know-back from the impact, or whatever it was that had happened had jarred his broken arm. The thought of leaning against a solid surface sounded like a good idea, but their current predicament didn't allow respite for the team leader.

Teyla immediately noticed his discomfort and quietly went over to get the Tylenol from the first aid kit. She offered him a canteen and the tablets.

John checked his watch and satisfied that enough time had elapsed since his last dose, he accepted. He also longed for some coffee or a few hours of sleep, but that would have to wait until they returned to Atlantis.

While John had been medicating himself, Rodney had been working the controls feverishly.

"I think you should see this." Rodney looked back over to John. "I have run pretty much every test the Jumper lets me with my oh-so limited genetic prowess and there is nothing, no sign of the Wraith. I'm not sure, but at least the Jumper's cloaking system is a variation of the shield technology; you can't use both at the same time. Are you still following?"

"Yes, Rodney. I'm following you!" Rodney was damn irritating lately. The entire yelling made John's head hurt.

"The Wraith had their shield activated when they were firing on us. Makes sense; they wouldn't want us to hit them. But normally, when you switch from shield to cloak or the other way around, there is brief energy surge. I went through the sensor log and I can't find it. Now, it's possible, the Wraith cloaked after our sensors went dark, but if they did before, which makes much more sense, then they didn't and the Wraith are not responsible, which leaves only one other alternative. I hate to consider this one since, well physics is a bit divided on the issue of time travel, but there the rumors that Colonel Carter once did it and the Ancients most probably did several times."

"Did what? John didn't want to know what Rodney had been doing with Colonel Carter.

"They have gone back in time. SG-1 found an Ancient Puddle Jumper on..."

John interrupted Rodney, frowning. "I read that report". Maybe he should have paid more attention, because he was sketchy on the details of that particular mission.

"Time travel? Never heard of it." Ronon joined the conversation. Teyla gave a slightly baffled look, suggesting serious confusion on her part. Both Pegasus Galaxy natives had been around space travel longer than McKay had worked for the Stargate program and they had well-founded doubts, but the scientist wasn't so easily dissuaded.

"Look at it. It makes sense." Rodney stressed each word.

"You have said that before about the Wraith thing, if I remember right." John was starting to wonder if maybe he had hit his head after all.

"Let me finish a sentence, will you? If we jumped back in time, it would explain why the Wraith have suddenly disappeared and why there is no damage to the Jumper anymore."

"One question McKay. How?" Ronon asked.

"I'm not so sure about that one. It could be the blast the Wraith fired at us, it could be a spatial anomaly the Jumper didn't pick up or it could be the popular suspicious alien device we picked up. God knows we have had our share of bad luck with those." Rodney cast a long look back to the small silver box in the back of the Jumper.

"The description didn't mention traveling through time," Teyla remarked. "But we did find a symbol meaning 'time' when Colonel Sheppard touched the device and there was a warning for danger. Maybe we had turned it on accidentally when the Wraith attacked us."

"I have been thinking along the same lines."

"Can't you just check the clock on the Jumper's system? That will tell us whether we have gone back in time or not." John was as puzzled by the events as the others, but the explanation Rodney proposed was a too out-there for him to accept at the moment. John had to admit that stranger things had happened to them in the Pegasus Galaxy.

"I already did, but it won't do any good anyways. If what I think happened, then we inside the Jumper remained in a protected environment, like in a bubble. We went back in time, but we are aware of going back in time. We are the observers."

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

In all his years with the USAF, this had never happened to John. Sure, he had run into his share of problems: entire villages that came out of nowhere, impassable rivers that swelled overnight, and trucks that broke down a hundred miles from the nearest settlement. Not everything went as planned.

"It's not there."

"What do you mean?" Teyla and Ronon asked at the same time.

"I can't find Atlantis. It's not on the sensors, and I can't get a visual either. It's just not there." John was stumped; there was no way to explain the situation.

"I hate to ask Sheppard, but is this the right planet?" The touch of mocking humor in Ronon's voice made John wonder if he had been taking lesson's from McKay. The scientist was glaringly silent in face of their predicament,

"I'm sure we are on the right planet. Of course we are on the right planet. Atlantis just isn't there." John was indignant. "Maybe the Wraith attacked and they sunk the City." He hadn't even considered the others might be dead until now.

"Can you contact them?" Teyla was as usual the voice of calm in the chaos, the only one who still had her head firmly on her shoulders while they were starting to freak out.

"I already tried that. We should still be able to reach them, even if they sank for some reason. If someone attacked them, the radio could just be down for the moment." John for once didn't know what to do. He reached out to the Jumper, but no unusual readings popped into his mind.

"I can't detect any Wraith in the area and they are not sending a distress call." Somehow John didn't believe the Wraith had attacked without a warning while they were gone. While there was always the possibility, they kept close track of Wraith activity. The last time the Wraith had attacked, they had known weeks in advance.

"It all makes sense." Rodney suddenly proclaimed. They all turned to stare at the scientist. "It makes sense the City isn't here now, it's still on the bottom of the ocean." Rodney grinned widely.

"Still on the bottom on the ocean? Don't you mean again?" John didn't understand what Rodney wanted to tell them.

Rodney jumped to his feet and raced to the front of the Jumper. He pushed John aside and started looking over the controls. "I didn't think it was possible, not even after that happened with the Wraith ship, but now, this makes sense. If we went back in time to before we arrived in Atlantis, the City would naturally still be submerged. We...we can't be here at all."

"Rodney, stop. Take a breath and back up a few steps." John halted the flood of words.

"You are saying that we went back at least fourteen months? So somewhere back home I'm sitting at McMurdo base with no clue about the Stargate program and at the same time I'm here in the Jumper?" John asked, his mind reeling to process what Rodney had said.

"At the moment, the present is still as we know it, but just by being here, we have probably already changed the future in some way. You can't imagine the ramifications of what happened." Rodney groaned.

"You are not the only one who was born with a brain," John snapped. "We have to stay calm now. All this doom-and-gloom isn't going to help anyone."

"Doom-and-gloom? Excuse me, but I'm the only one who has any idea of what you did. This is worse than when you woke up the Wraith."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Rodney was not the person John was going to discuss this topic with. He had made the wrong call and there was no way he could ever undo the damage he had done by awaking the Wraith, but his sleepless nights were none of Rodney's business. The man had just blown up the better part of a solar system.

"Let's just say that you are the poster boy for the American military. The way you saved the Athosians _after_ getting their home burned to the ground?"

"Be careful, Rodney! You are walking a fine line." John had to fight himself hard not to hit Rodney. The man knew how to push his buttons too well.

"Now you are resorting to the caveman tactics. I'm shocked."

John was on Rodney before anyone could stop him. Having a broken arm didn't stop him; he felt no pain at all, as he pushed Rodney against the console.

"I'm telling you this only once Rodney, shut up!"

"What are you going to do to me?" Rodney's lop-sided grin was cold.

"Stop! You will not hurt each other!" Teyla interrupted John's planned acts of violence. She and Ronon pulled John away from Rodney.

John didn't resist them. He meekly followed Teyla into the back of the Jumper and sat down on a bench. Ronon stayed in front, looming over Rodney.

"Are you all right?" You and Dr. McKay have been behaving strangely since we crashed." Teyla didn't mention their fight; all John could detect in her voice was concern.

"I...I don't known. I can't help it. It must be something doing this to us."

"I agree. There is no other explanation. It would be preferable for you to see Dr. Beckett, but as I understand Dr. McKay, this is not possible anymore or it is not yet possible as you rather say."

"We need to get to the bottom of this. We have to stop this, it's getting worse, and I can feel it." John wrapped his good arm carefully around himself, suddenly feeling cold and weak.

"How are you feeling?" Teyla had noticed he was feeling ill and got up searching for something in the storage compartments.

"I'm cold, like the temperature suddenly dropped fifteen degrees. Headache. It all happened just now, after Rodney..." John didn't finish the sentence as Teyla handed him an emergency blanket.

"I'm afraid that is the only one I can find. You should lie down and try to keep warm. I will make some hot tea from one of your ration packs."

"MREs." Teyla never bothered to use the many acronyms of military-speak. John didn't lie down, but he pulled the emergency blanket over his shoulders.

"Rodney." John needed to talk to the scientist.

"I don't think this is a good idea, Sheppard." Ronon was immediately in front of him ready to body-check him.

"I need to talk to Rodney. I'm all right, I promise. I won't do anything." John wished he could be sure of that. "Rodney is the only one who has any clue how to get us out of here. Right?" John smiled with force.

"So you say." Ronon shrugged. "McKay's not feeling well." Ronon moved and John spotted McKay sitting in the pilot's seat, pale and shivering.

"Major, looks like we are screwed this time." Rodney smiled weakly.

"No, we are not. Use that big brain of yours. It all started after we crashed on that damn planet. We must have been exposed to something your gizmo didn't pick up and I'm guessing it's the same thing that threw us back in time. We have to destroy this device before it kills us. I need you to help me come up with a plan quickly, we don't have much time."

Rodney's eyes looked a bit glassy, but he appeared to be following what John was saying.

"Naquadah is virtually indestructible. It's impervious to bullets and explosives. It won't be easy to destroy this box and I don't think we should before we don't know more about what it does." Rodney looked at John with an unsteady gaze, but there was determination in his eyes.

"Look at what it's doing to us. Maybe it will affect Teyla and Ronon in time as well and then we _will_ be screwed. We need to get rid of it now At the SGC, they dumped a Stargate into a sun or something to destroy it, remember? Can we do that?"

"We can't and we won't." Rodney crossed his arms in front of his chest. "If we destroy the box, we will be stranded in the Pegasus Galaxy for the rest of our lives, I don't think you realise that. Even if we found a way to return to Earth, we couldn't without doing unimaginable damage to the future as we know it. What do you think we are going to do?"

"I don't know that yet. Maybe we could contact the Athosians. At least we do know what not to do. The Wraith are asleep at the moment and they will sleep for a few more decades if we are careful and don't make the same mistakes again. But no matter what we do, it beats being dead." There was no good choice, but John would be damned before he gave up.

"I think I might be able to fix this, if I know more about how this device works." Rodney was more careful to state his claim this time, but John still felt reminded of the Arcturus project. "Teyla mentioned the planet with the inscriptions matching the writing you called up from the device with your gene."

"You think the planet was deserted because of something that happened with this device?" Teyla questioned.

"It's a strong possibility. Maybe it's the gene, that's why it's affecting only me and Rodney, but I can feel how it is affecting me and I think you can too, Rodney." John refused to admit his own weakness beyond what was obvious, but he felt like he was walking in the dark, waiting for an unseen monster to attack him.

Rodney didn't respond. He had his arms wrapped tightly around his upper body. John didn't like the pale color of Rodney's skin or the blue tinge of Rodney's lips. The shudders were hard and pronounced, rattling Rodney down to the teeth.

John shook the emergency blanket off his shoulders and pushed it over to Rodney. "Take it. I'll get a blanket from my bedroll."

"Thanks." It was a toneless mutter, but Rodney took the proffered blanket and pulled it firmly around himself.

Ronon had gone to the back and handed Sheppard two blankets.

"Colonel Sheppard is right, we need to do something. You two are getting worse. We can't keep this thing here, so we fly to the mainland and leave it there. We can do what McKay said and figure out a way to turns things back to the way they were." Ronon approached the problem from the practical side. Still, Rodney had an objection.

"We can't do that because it might chance what happens in the future. I think the reason this device affects us is some sort of radiation, which you and Teyla have never heard of, of course, but the point is, we can't leave it on the mainland." Rodney frantically rubbed his arms.

"I know what radiation is," Ronon said with barely suppressed anger.

"Let's all stay calm. We can't let this thing make us turn on each other." For the moment, John didn't feel the boiling rage that he driven him to the point of nearly getting physical with Rodney. "Rodney, you remember that ten thousand year old Wraith?"

"How could I forget? Do you want to remind me of another one of my glorious hours?" Rodney sounded tired.

"No, no, listen to me. I'm getting at something else. Remember how he tried to lock me out of the Jumper using the shield extended outside the Jumper?"

"I get it. You are thinking of pulling the Jumper shield inside the Jumper, as a barrier between us and the device. It's an idea. Of course, we'll be unprotected if anyone shoots at us." John could leave it to Rodney to point out the flaws in his plan. Rodney considered all eventualities.

"The Wraith are in hibernation, we will be safe." Teyla reminded him. Rodney looked up at her, an almost confused expression on his face.

"Oh, yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Right, they are hibernating. We'll be safe." Rodney grinned stupidly.

John reached out a hand to Rodney's shoulder. Rodney's body radiated cold through the blanket. "Are you feeling all right?"

"I'm not sure." Rodney looked wide-eyed at John.

"That's so much not like you. Come on." John took Rodney by the elbow with his good arm. "You are lying down. I'll figure out how to pull in the shield before we freeze to death. How hard can it be?"

"It might not work." Rodney mumbled as John pulled him up. Rodney was limp in his grasp, hardly able to support his own weight.

"Don't worry about it. I'll figure it out. Just concentrate on walking over there."

With Ronon's and Teyla's help, John got Rodney settled on the bench. The effort left him trembling with exhaustion, but he wasn't feeling cold anymore. Moving around had cost him strength, his broken arm hurt but John didn't have the luxury of rest.

TBC


End file.
